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Public health manifesto calls for radical action to fight poverty

Public health experts are urging radical action to fight poverty and reduce health inequalities as part of a ‘manifesto’ aimed at the main political parties in the run-up to a general election.

The document, launched by the Association for Public Health at its second annual conference in April, has been published for debate before a formal launch in November.

The draft manifesto calls for wide-ranging measures both to reduce inequalities and improve quality of life for all. It urges an integrated health strategy to tackle the root causes of poor health, including unemployment, poverty and poor housing and urges action across a range of fronts, from education and transport to nutrition and fear of crime.

The APH wants to see a minister for public health with the Department of Health taking the lead on public health in Whitehall — an idea already proposed by the Labour Party. It also suggests elected authorities might take responsibility for health policy and planning locally.

The manifesto’s approach is founded in the World Health Organisation’s Health For All principles, which call for intersectoral working, the pursuit of equity and community participation. To combat poverty, the document proposes better employment practices, welfare rights training for all front-line workers, the targeting of resources and redirecting of services to areas of greatest need, and the recognition that ‘the experts on poverty are the poor’.

Launching the document, Professor David Hunter, director of Leeds University’s Nuffield Institute for Health, said it had been a ‘bad year’ for public health, with continuing concerns about housing, transport, water and food. Yet public health was unlikely to play a big role in the general election campaign. It was up to the APH to ‘redress the balance’.

Dr Jacky Chambers, director of public health with Birmingham health authority, told the conference health funds should be redirected in order to effectively tackle inequalities.

She said: ‘We need to ration and to ration hard. Unless we talk about areas of disinvestment, unless we hold back some of the pressures for growth we will never be able to offer some of the developments we already know are effective in addressing inequalities in health.’

The APH is seeking comments on the draft manifesto by July 31. For copies write to the APH, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9TX.